P.M. Executive Briefing - August 4
This Afternoon's Headlines:
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Paychecks Bounce
Former employees of Preston Trucking say their paychecks are bouncing. Drivers Glenn Smith and Richard Matson say tellers warned them ahead of time that their Preston paychecks might be no good, since other Preston employees had bounced paychecks. Last week in Philadelphia, truckers parked loaded trucks around the Preston facility due to bad paychecks, and Teamsters higher-ups elsewhere in the country also mentioned bouncing Preston paychecks.Ohio Preston maintenance man Tim Lawrence says he is mostly upset about the loss of his health benefits. He says Preston warned him about the checks ahead of time, but assured him that they would clear eventually.Other employees are also worried about health benefits and the inability to further raise their retirement pensions with lengthier terms of employment.
Intrenet Subsidiary Roadrunner Trucking, Inc. Launches New Special Services Division
Roadrunner Trucking, a long-haul van and flatbed unit of Intrenet Inc., has launched a flatbed-services division that increases Roadrunner's previous 700-tractor operating fleet by 150 tractors. The company hopes to increase operating margins with the specialized division, whose services include extend-able, drop and doubledrop trailers. The division also has six new terminals in three states — Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. Roadrunner President Larry Corn expects the company's operating revenues to break the $100 million mark. PRNewswire (08/03/99)Keep On Trucking
On Aug. 23, a onetime Kenworth factory in Sainte-Therese, Canada, will resume truck production for the first time since closing during a late summer strike four years ago.The government vowed a $30.3 million incentive if the plant's owner, Paccar Inc., would return to the plant. Paccar must repay the incentive, but will not have to pay any interest on it. That incentive was part of the $128.5 million Paccar spent on updating the plant's technology.
Now, the company projects a daily maximum of 120 Kenworth and Peterbilt Class 7 trucks. The actual number of trucks turned out by the plant's 170 workers will depend on demand. Montreal Gazette Online (08/03/99); Ravensbergen, Jan
Permits Made Easy
Iowa has made temporary regional trip and fuel permits available on its Web site since May 1998. Soon, the site will also offer permits for Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and Oklahoma.The site is developed and maintained in part by American Management Systems, whose principal Mark Portofe says Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may also soon offer permits through the site.
nline permitting is a boon for truckers (for whom the site saves data) and for the state.
Portofe notes that Iowa's motor vehicle administration "reduced data entry time to three to five minutes for every permit that comes through the Web."
Bob Russell of the Oregon Trucking Association says regional truckers would benefit most from online permit-ting, since many regional lines are not registered with the International Registration Plan or the International Fuel Tax Agreement.
ussell added that carriers often "will register only in those states that they frequently travel," and are inconven-ienced by the processes of obtaining temporary permits to carry loads in other states.
Permit Express President Ron Hughes does not expect to lose too much business to Iowa's online permitting site since truck companies are too busy to obtain permits on their own. He adds that temporary permits are needed less and less often as time goes on.
Hughes concludes that the difficulty of arranging multi-state programming is mainly due to the states' general lack of interest in such programs, which would need to be funded and staffed. Traffic World (08/02/99) Vol. 259, No. 5; P. 19; Hickey, Kathleen
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